News

Group Therapy is a relationship advice column that asks readers to contribute their wisdom. Each week, we offer up a problem for you to weigh in on, then publish the most lively responses, with a final word on the matter delivered by our columnist, Claudia Dey.

A reader writes: My wife and I have been married for 11 years, we are in our mid-30s and in pretty good shape. I love her and I am very attracted to her. Even though I am not happy with the infrequency of us sleeping together (roughly every two weeks), this is not the topic of the advice I am seeking. When we met, my wife had not had intercourse with anyone before, while I had had a number of relationships. When we have sex, my wife insists that she can only reach orgasm in one position: on top of me. It is always the same. I would like to be more adventurous. She has humoured me occasionally - once every other year. We talk about it, so she knows my "position." I've never had an affair, nor do I think that this is a solution.

Issues of trust

Sex is always the place where the grit of a relationship settles. The infrequency of your sex is related to your mutual dissatisfaction. This may come out of other issues in your life together or it may just be a lack of communication. There are infinite possible variations in sex; after 11 years, two attractive, attracted lovers should have been able to find more than one. Is there a lack of trust (self-trust or trust in each other), shyness, fear of vulnerability?

- Elise Moser, Montreal

Consider outside help

It's always easier to solve things like this when you look at it from her perspective. Your wife may feel that sex is great but, at some level, a necessary evil. Or your lives may be so hectic that that's all she has energy for. Getting to the root of her motivations and needs may help to kill several birds with one stone. There's also the possibility that it's time to get some outside help. You have been around and around this territory yourselves. Think about the possibility of asking your wife to see a sex therapist. Make sure that she knows you are willing to accept anything that comes up, up to and including the possibility that your technique has been an impediment to her wanting more frequent sex. Not that I'm saying it is, but if you go in thinking it's all her problem, it's not going to work - accept that part of the problem may be yours.

- Tim Lowan, Victoria

It's about romance

You have talked about it with her and you say she knows your position: What actions have you taken to entice her? Speaking for myself and the other women I know of all ages, we love men who listen, who encourage us and show affection and love for us in a myriad of ways: love letters, flowers, an e-mail to her at work telling her you miss her, touching her as you pass her in a room and so on. If you are not a romantic in what you do with her and for her, then that is where a change needs to take place on your part, and the rest will follow, barring a medical or psychological issue.

- Sharon Charboneau,

Sechelt, B.C.

THE FINAL WORD

Dear Bottomed Out,

Sex is the equivalent of 1,000 conversations. A very basic decoding, it can right a relationship in one carnal blast. You are immersed in the business of your life, your dance card too crowded. Suddenly, you find yourself in a voluptuous stronghold and in an instant, the marriage is once again transparent. All is clear.

This postcoital clarity should be a sublime relief, and yet, in your case, the 1,000 conversations are always the same. Your sex life, a kind of sensual dementia, a fixed script. A rut in the naughty record, it skips at the same place every time. So how to lure your wife into a bedroom expedition without risking a mutiny?

First, she must not feel singled out by her relative inexperience or by her preferences. We are all guilty of cultivating habits of arousal. These are akin to survival skills; the primordial self rushes toward the thing that feels good.

One great boon: You have not lost that ineffable charge of attraction. It still flickers some 11 years later. One less complication: You are not tempted to try your floor routine with another. You are, Bottomed Out, committed.

Take your cue from Romantic Charboneau. Practise the art of the gesture. Be a scavenger of the sensual world. Bring home books and films. Attend workshops. Buy toys, silk slips, ostrich feathers. This is flint. This is foreplay.

Next, with a kapow of affection, make a proposal. Invite your wife into a new phase of love-making - one that is exploratory and fearless. You want to apprehend the possibilities of your bodies, how they accrete.

You want to be your wife's servant - delivering sensations - both familiar and unfamiliar. You want to find new dimensions of intimacy in the marriage; you are sure they exist.

If your wife is unmoved, follow the advice of Your Technique Lowan. Ask her if she would be willing to seek counselling - not because your sex life is broken and must be fixed, but because it is largely untapped and you are devoted to its full expression. In that forum, the valid questions posited by Mutual Dissatisfaction Moser can be mined - and the 1,000 conversations can truly begin.

Claudia Dey is a playwright and author of the novel Stunt. Her website is ClaudiaDey.com.

grouptherapy@globeandmail.com

******

Next week's question

My boyfriend and I have been together for over a year, and are very much in love. We are both university students nearing the end of our degrees. He is in the midst of being diagnosed with some form of psychosis. I've seen the changes in his moods, sleep and appetite, as well as an increasing social withdrawal and difficulty expressing himself - academically and emotionally. I want to be as supportive as I can in a time when he needs it most. But recently, his personal struggles have made it very difficult for him to be there for me in the ways he used to. I realize it's all part of the psychosis, and I've resolved to wait it out. I feel guilty for feeling alone because I know he's going through so much. But what do I do in the meantime about my emotional needs?

Let's hear from you

Do you have an answer to this question, or a dilemma of your own that you'd like readers to help solve? Weigh in at grouptherapy@globeandmail.com, and be sure to include your hometown and a daytime contact number so we can follow up with any queries. (We will not publish your name if you submit a personal dilemma.)